The Hot Kid

Or save the strike stuff, put it in further down in the story and concentrate on the raid in the opening with Nestor Lott the key figure, responsible for the shoot-out that ensued.

  He could even call it that, “Shoot-out at Bald Mountain.”

  That would be perfect, if the roadhouse was called the Bald Mountain something or other, club, resort. On the title page a photo of the roadhouse with the sign prominently displayed. Where, when the gun smoke cleared, saw—put in the number of men lying dead. Tony had been out there a couple of times and met Jack Belmont and the girls—one in particular, Elodie, catching his eye—but damn if he could remember if there was a sign in front.

  Tony got there before Nestor and the Klansmen arrived. Earlier, he’d been told something was going on at the Pentacostal church on the edge of town, went out there and saw them getting ready and had a chance to speak to a Klansman named Ed Hagenlocker Jr., who told him what was going on and didn’t mind Tony writing his name in the notebook. He had talked to Ed Jr. once in Krebs—where everybody called him Son—Son telling where he was from and about his dad being married to Louly Brown’s mother. This time Son told him they’d either blow up the roadhouse or set their torches to it, burn the liquor place to the ground.

  Right after this Tony drove out to Bald Mountain that was all dark trees and not bald anywhere that he could see, rising behind the roadhouse. He pulled up in front and said, “Nuts.” There wasn’t a sign on it that said Bald Mountain or any name at all. No cars here either, and he realized his Ford Coupé could be in the middle of the action, end up with bullet holes in it. Tony drove around back to see six cars parked in the yard in a row facing the back of the place, Tony assuming they belonged to Belmont and people who worked for him and didn’t want their cars shot up. Tony left his car and walked around to the front. So far he hadn’t seen a soul or any sign of life.

  Not until he walked in the barroom, empty in dull morning light, and one of the bouncers appeared out of the back of the room and went behind the bar. Tony watched him reach underneath and come up with a revolver in each hand he laid on the bar. Now he set up a bottle of whiskey and a glass and poured a generous double shot. The bouncer’s name was Walter. Not Wally, Walter. He saw Tony standing in the middle of the room and said, “We’re closed.”

  It was in Tony’s mind to say, You better be, but kept quiet. If they didn’t know Nestor was coming and he said anything about it, he’d be intruding on the natural passage of events; he’d be putting himself in the story and have to explain why he tipped them off, these people selling liquor illegally. He didn’t think True Detective would go for it.

  Tony had asked Walter one time how he became a bouncer. Walter said he’d worked in oil fields and liked to get into fistfights. He was a big boy in his thirties, two hundred pounds or more on a Charles Atlas kind of build. Had a neck on him like a tree trunk and never smiled, nothing Walter thought was ever funny.

  Now a man about fifty was coming down from upstairs putting on his suitcoat, his necktie hanging loose. Down the staircase Belmont must’ve picked up at an estate sale, once in the home of some guy who went out his office window in ’29. Tony could check, find out where they got the stairway. Or write it assuming that could easily have been the situation, lot of it had been going on. Tony watched the guy go to the bar and pick up the whiskey waiting for him. He could be a lawyer or somebody in the oil business. Tony wondered if the man had been with Elodie. The times he was here before he’d seen her sitting in that plush area toward the back of the room, an arrangement of upholstered pieces, chairs and settees done in red damask to show off the whores. Elodie could be this man’s favorite, spent the night with her while his wife thought he was in Tulsa. It got Tony wondering about Elodie, if she’d be all right when Nestor came on his raid—and my God, there she was.

  Coming down the stairs in her pink kimono, her dark hair pinned up. The man at the bar raised his glass and she stepped over to give him a peck on the cheek. But now she was coming this way, the sweet girl, with a worried look on her face, Tony wishing more than anything in the world she wasn’t a whore.

  She offered her hands and he took them saying, “Where’s everybody?”

  “Busy,” Elodie said. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  He wanted to tell her, You shouldn’t either. He wanted to ask her to leave right now, run away with him and quit being a whore. But what he said was, “I saw them. Nestor and the Klan are on their way.”

  Jack Belmont was sitting on the side of the bed with Violet, his hand on her bare knee with her white shorts hiked up, his Winchester on the windowsill across the room, pointing out, a revolver on the floor over there.

  Carl Webster appeared in the bedroom doorway.

  “I don’t see you’re paying much attention.”

  “I’ll hear their cars, won’t I?”

  “What if they leave ’em down the road?”

  “I’m just getting a cigaret.”

  Violet put one between her lips, struck a kitchen match to light the cigaret and handed it to Jack. Violet had dark shiny hair and was maybe the best looking of the girls, Carl might say a beauty; he believed she had some Creek in her. Violet reminded him of a thin Narcissa Raincrow, his dad’s housekeeper he slept with every night, only Violet was better looking. Carl now favored redheads with pure white skin and brown eyes; though he’d have to admit he liked Crystal Davidson’s blonde hair, the way it was marcelled. Crystal was a few years older than Carl, while Louly Brown was a good five years younger but seemed grown up, the little girl with the cute smile who’d shot a wanted fugitive.

  He said to Jack Belmont, “You don’t fire less I tell you.”

  Carl walked a few strides along the upstairs hall to the next bedroom where Norm Dilworth was crouched at the front window with the Thompson, a 1921 model with a buttstock attached and a drum that held a hundred rounds of .45s. Norm had a pair of binoculars on the floor next to him. Heidi was stretched out on the bed, her head raised on pillows. She saw Carl and said, “Norm, Carl’s here.” That’s all. She was quiet this morning, like Norm’d had a talk with her last night. Heidi had on a playsuit with bell-bottoms that looked Mexican to Carl. A .38 lay on the quilt next to her thigh.

  Carl said to Norm, “You fire for range?”

  “I lay it on the sill and get down behind it, these two nails holding it? It’s set on the road.”

  “They could drive in.”

  “I raise up, keep the barrel on the sill.”

  It wasn’t a minute later they heard a girl’s voice yelling something, sounding like it was coming from the stairs.

  The voice brought Heidi upright on the bed. “Lord, that’s Elodie. Something’s wrong.”

  Now they heard her in the hall and Carl stepped out of the bedroom to see Elodie coming toward him wide-eyed saying, “Tony saw them—they’re on their way.”

  Carl stopped her, resting his hand on her shoulder.

  “Who’s Tony?”

  “The writer,” Elodie said, sounding out of breath.

  “I don’t think I know him,” Carl said. But there he was coming along the hall in a hurry, an eager young guy in a suit, a full head of combed hair. Carl said, “Who’re you with, one of the newspapers?”

  Now he looked surprised saying, “I write feature stories for True Detective.”

  “No kidding,” Carl said. “That’s a good magazine.”

  “You read it?”

  “When I get a chance.”

  They heard Norm in the room yell out, “Carl, they’re here!” And yelled Carl’s name again while Carl stood in the hall with Tony Antonelli.

  He said, “You the one gonna interview Louly Brown in Tulsa, at the Mayo Hotel?”

  Tony said, “How’d you know that?”

  “I’ll tell you right now,” Carl said, “she isn’t Charley Floyd’s girlfriend or ever was. So don’t ask her.”

  Tony followed the marshal into the bedroom, Carl Webster in person, here, to meet Nestor Lott and his Klans
men. Tony couldn’t believe it. He’d try to stay close to him.

  They could see the cars coming in from the highway, about a quarter of a mile to the road and turning into it, one behind the other coming past the woods that stood at the north end of the property. Now they were slowing to a stop, closing up almost bumper to bumper across the front of the yard, Norm saying, “The lead car’s Nestor’s, the De Soto. There he is getting out. See him?”

  Carl said, “He’s a little fella, huh?”

  Tony said, “This is the first time you’ve seen him?”

  Heidi, standing over Norm, was in the way. Carl Webster moved her aside and said, “Go tell Jack not to fire till I tell him. I want to see how Nestor wants to work it.”

  Heidi left in a hurry, not saying a word, and now Norm asked, “What’s that he’s holding?”

  “A bullhorn,” Carl said.

  Tony got out his notebook and started writing, describing Nestor standing in the road behind his dark blue De Soto four-door sedan. Now two more with army rifles joining him. Now a third one, also with a Springfield coming out of the car and Tony said, “I know that one, he’s called Son. He says his dad’s married to the mother of Pretty Boy Floyd’s girlfriend, Louly Brown?” Tony stopped as Carl turned to look at him, but then said, “I can’t help what he says, can I?”

  “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Carl said. “Write that in your notebook.”

  Tony wrote: “The marshal doesn’t raise his voice but has an amazing presence (command?) and you want to believe what he says, even though he’s still young. Wearing a navy blue two-piece suit, pressed. Maybe a sixth sense telling him this would be a memorable day. Impossible to tell where he carries his gun, a Colt .38 with a six-inch barrel. No hat this morning, the well-publicized panama he was wearing when he shot Emmett Long.”

  Carl picked up Norm’s binoculars and studied the row of cars. “The ones sitting in there are wearing their robes, but not the three with Nestor. They’re his shooters. Keep both your eyes on them. Nestor’s wearing his old shield and a military decoration. It means this squirt was in the Great War, been in battle.”

  They heard a static sound from the bullhorn Nestor raised to his face.

  Carl said, “Norm, put your sights on the last car.” It’s rear end was no more than ten feet from the edge of the woods. “That’s where you’ll start. Nestor’s gonna give us five minutes to come out with our hands up or he’ll…do whatever he feels like. As soon as he starts to talk rake those cars left to right across the tires, your finger stuck on the trigger. Get to his and stop. Let’s see what they do.”

  Norm rested his front sight on the right rear tire of the last car.

  Nestor said, “I’m giving you people five minutes—”

  And Norm raked that line of coupés and sedans, the Thompson chattering from one end to the other, Carl watching through the glasses, Tony hunching his shoulders at the racket filling the room.

  “You rose up on the two middle cars,” Carl said. “I think you might’ve hit the ones inside.”

  “It got away from me,” Norm said.

  “Yeah, I can see blood on their robes. They’re getting out the other side.” Reporting it in a natural tone of voice while Tony made notes, seeing Klansmen piling out of the cars on the off-side to crouch behind them.

  Now firing was coming from the next room, Jack Belmont snapping off shots. Carl lowered the glasses to look at Heidi.

  “Go tell him I said to quit shooting.”

  Heidi ran to the other front bedroom to see Jack and Violet at the window, Jack firing at the cars. Heidi pushed Violet aside.

  “The marshal says to quit shooting.”

  Jack said, “He did, huh?” levered the Winchester and fired another round before turning to look at Heidi.

  She said, “He wants to see what they’re gonna do next.”

  “They’re armed,” Jack said. “Ask him what he thinks they’re gonna do.”

  Nestor was standing, looking over the De Soto’s hood toward the roadhouse. Now he turned to the Klansmen hugging the ground behind their cars, all those white bedsheets that looked like piles of wash dumped in the road, a few pointed tops with eyeholes rising now to look through their car windows at the roadhouse. The Wycliff brothers and Son looked up at Nestor showing himself, hands on his hips, hat down on his eyes, looked at each other and got to their feet.

  Nestor said to the Klansmen, “What’s wrong with you? Come on, get up. They weren’t trying to hit anybody, they’re shooting at the tires.”

  A Klansmman said, “They’s some here got shot.”

  “’Cause these people don’t know how to fire a Thompson submachine gun. You got to hold her down,” Nestor said. “I’m telling you they weren’t trying to hit anybody, those boys got shot by accident. Come on, get out your torches and light ’em up. Cock your pistols and stick ’em in your pants, in front like I told you. I want to see you all advance on that position like nothing’s gonna stop you. They see fire coming at ’em they’ll panic, throw up their hands and run. I guarantee.”

  Norm said, “Carl? They’re lighting torches. See ’em? Coming out from between the cars, across the ditch—”

  “Lay it down in front of ’em,” Carl said. “They’ll stop and think about it.” He watched them forming a line, ten across with their torches, holding them high. Carl thinking, Like the nitwit is saying, here, shoot me in the chest.

  Norm, on his knees, raised the stock of the Thompson, getting the front sight on the middle of the yard.

  Now another row of Klansmen was coming from between the cars with their torches, forming behind the first row.

  Counting the ones still hiding back of the cars, Carl decided there were about thirty of them. He said to Norm, “Lay it down.”

  Norm fired left to right and with the clatter they watched the dirt kicked up about ten feet in front of the leading row, stopping them in their tracks, confused, pulling revolvers, turning into one another with their torches blazing, turning to Nestor behind his car.

  Norm was grinning, watching them come near setting one another on fire. He said, “They don’t know whether to piss or run home, do they?”

  They aren’t a hundred feet away,” Jack Belmont said, “and he can’t hit ’em? I should’ve kept the Thompson.” He raised the Winchester and sighted against the black cross on a Klansman’s chest, telling himself, Your first one. Take a breath and hold it, start to let it out…

  “I think Carl just wants to stop them,” Heidi said. “It looks like it did. They don’t know what to do. Look at ’em.” She was crouched next to Jack on the floor, holding the revolver he had given her.

  Jack fired and saw the Klansman knocked off his feet, the torch flying.

  “Got him.”

  He levered and fired.

  “Got him.”

  Levered and fired.

  “Another one. Shit, this is like fish in a barrel.”

  Levered and fired.

  “How many’s that?”

  Levered and fired and handed the Winchester to Heidi. “You counting? Keep track while you load that for me.” He took the revolver she was holding and the one on the floor by his knee and fired one and then the other at arm’s length, moving his head from gun to gun, fired at the cars and the bedsheets squeezing between them. “Now they’re running across the road. Look, they’re out in that pasture, some cows grazing there.” Jack raised the revolvers and fired at them long range until he heard the guns click empty.

  Heidi said, “Jack,” touching his shoulder.

  “Let me have the rifle.”

  “I didn’t load it,” Heidi said. “Carl’s here.”

  Jack turned to Carl above him looking out the open window at the Klansmen lying in the yard, none of them moving. Tony, his notebook open, was standing next to him.

  Carl said, “I told you to quit shooting.”

  Jack said, “You did? I must not’ve heard you. I know I got those seven out there, maybe
a couple more. I fired at some I could see through the car windows, and they took off across the pasture over there. I fired a few shots at them.”

  “You hit a cow,” Heidi said. “See the one like it’s limping? Look, quick, now it’s lying down. I think you killed it.”

  “I have to admit,” Jack said, “firing at those bedsheets was like a shooting gallery, but I stopped them, didn’t I? Heidi says she lost count.” He looked up again at Carl Webster. “How many is it you’ve shot in your life? Just the four I’ve heard of?”

  Carl, staring out the window, didn’t answer him, Nestor on his mind.

  Now Tony looked at the line of cars, steam rising out of a couple of their radiators, and made a note of it.

  Carl said, “Where’s Nestor?”

  Jack looked out the window.

  “Running, I imagine.”

  Carl said, “The ones in the pasture are all wearing robes.”

  “Then he’s still behind the cars.”

  Tony got ready to speak as Carl said, “And the three boys with him? They didn’t run. And if they’re not lying out in the yard, where are they?”

  It was quiet outside and in the room that smelled of gunpowder. Tony made a note of it and said, “I caught a glimpse of Nestor and those three—the ones with army rifles?—sneaking along behind the cars while Jack was shooting. They got to that last car and, I’m pretty sure they ducked into the trees.”

  Again it was quiet until Carl said, “So they’re still around. Good.”

  8

  They followed the marshal downstairs, Norm with the Thompson under his arm, Jack behind him, a revolver in each hand, Jack thinking how easy it would be to raise one of the .38s and shoot Norm in the back of the head, stick the barrel in that thatch of dark hair. Stumble against him as he fired and say oh my God, it was an accident. Jack felt good and said to Heidi over his shoulder, “I want it known I didn’t shoot any cow.”

  She was carrying his Winchester and said, “I saw you, you did it on purpose.”